Debut alert! Welcome, Ms. Corless, to the NYT Crossword puzzle. And what a debut, with two triple stacks of 15-letter answers. I appreciate the decision to have them going down rather than across, from an aesthetic perspective.
As always, when there are so many 15-letter answers, it is incumbent on the reviewer to rank them with all the implied authority and prerogative associated with being in charge of the blog. Which is to say very little at all. Here goes:
1. JACKOFALLTRADES. Pretty good clue ("Certain multitasker?) and lovely starting off the puzzle with a J. It's a strong and colorful entry.
2. FREAKINGAWESOME. Two great answers in a row! And the clue ("Amazeballs") hands down wins.
3. TEMPORARYTATTOO. Extra points for avoiding any and all Ss in the final answer in the stack. I also like the clue ("Erasable ink?").
4. KEYNOTESPEECHES. Nice K to start us off. I wanted KEYNOTESPEakerS, but this works as well.
5a. PAROLEVIOLATION. Decent clue, fine answer.
5b. DRAMATICLICENSE. Same as above. I rank these last two equivalent. But really, there's not a bad one in the lot, so that's strong work!
Of course, with this much goodness in the 15-letter answers, there's a fair amount of glue. I recall when I first started doing these, how much difficulty they presented me. Now, all those little bits help out. I'm looking at you, CEY, EME, SES, DPT, LGS, CIR, DER, XES, DAR, etc.
I want to acknowledge some other fun things here. 51D: Resting spot for some buns (NAPE). Great non-QMC! I definitely was not thinking about hairdos in answering this. I needed all the crosses. 5D: Good faith agreements? (AMENS). Yes! So good. And 63A: One backward musician? (ENO). That's a puns and acrostics type clue, but it worked for me.
I am fine with all of the less amazeballs answers for those fun stacks. How about you?
- Colum
Quite an achievement! I have to say I didn't like a lot of those really obscure 3-letter entries. But in the service of those stacked 15-letter-ers, I will gladly swallow my objections. I put in CREATIVELICENSE at first, which caused no end of trouble. Actually there was an end, about 2 min later, which pushed me to 7:18 but FWTE as I'd entered PAROLEVIOLATOIN and was unable to find the typo. Oh well. This sort of thing never happens with pen and paper.
ReplyDeleteA challenge for me, but I absolutely loved it. And a debut? FREAKING AWESOME!
ReplyDeleteI tried both KEYNOTESPEakErs and aRtisTICLICENSE first, but still finished in a blistering (for me) 11-something. Everything clicked over here at the YBH. And I agree that the "glue" is now a big helper, whereas it was formerly quite a sticking point.
ReplyDeleteEverything fell into place for me. 6:27. Possibly my fastest Friday ever.
ReplyDelete